Color Blindness

[Kat]

How soon can you get a kid tested for color blindness? My mom brought this up this weekend because ds is always messing up with his colors. He is 2-1/2 and if you point to two crayons and show him which one is red and which one is blue, then ask him what color the red one is, he'll say blue. Rarely does he get it right, almost like he guessed and it happened to be the right guess.

He knows orange, but the only things he calls orange are things with an actual orange on them (like the orange juice).

Am I paranoid? Aren't they supposed to know their colors (at least a couple of them) by now?

[InsomniacBrat]

from what I know, colorblindness is a male thing. BUT most colorblind males can see red, blue, green etc, but they can't distinguish the different shades, like maroon looks red, and magenta looks red. If you are concerned about it take him in.

[Revvie]

Yanno what? Color mix up is VERY common even until age four or so. And Reds/Greens mixups are the last to get "straightened out" b/c the spectrum whatevers are so close (spectrum signatures?)

My mom gifted me w/ this piece of info when I was stressing about dd, and I've since found info online that corroborated it. I wouldn't worry about it for another year or so. :)

[MSRX]

That is good to know, I was wondering the same thing about Xena. She'll say the color names, but many times not with something of that color.

[WhiteTrashBarbie]

ITA w/IB. My dh was recently diagnosed with a form of color blindness. All along I was thinking he was crazy when he called his "beige" Calvin Klein pants his "white" pants. Now I now he really just couldn't tell.

I think for young children, though, it's easy for them to mix their colors up. When your ped gives your son his first eye test, tell him your concerns. At 2-1/2, my dd was still mixing up pink, red and purple. Give him a little time.

[The Church Lady]

Well my dh is the only male in his family (and I am talking cousins too on his moms side) who supposedly isn't color blind (I sometimes have my doubts though).

Color blindness will come in ranges-but the most common is red/green-basically according to my bil shades or red or green generally look brown-although he can usually figure out the reds-he has more trouble with the greens. Older bil can't even figure out that much.

I honestly think it is too soon to worry about, and if your mom or dad don't have any males in their families with color blindness it may not be a real concern anyway-the color blindness will come from your side though-since it is an X chromosome disorder.

[Chickie]

Exactly what Kim said...being color blind does not mean you can only see black and white, it means depending on your color blindness there are families of color you have problems with.

Anyway I think it it too soon to worry too...this reminds me of an awful story I heard recently (someone told me this because they thought it was funny!!!!unbelievable!!!) Seems there was a young child, 4 or 5, that had all the colors mixed up, they would show him a red ball and he would say blue, show him a blue one he would say green, etc. Sent him for testing, could not figure out what was wrong....he always said the wrong color but was consistant (ie. blue was ALWAYS green). Turns out the kids uncle had taught him all the wrong colors, he thought it was funny. What a fucking imbilcile.

[Kat]

Thanks guys! I didn't think there was a problem. And DH likes to joke around with DS with the colors like that, and I throw a fit!!!

[krissi]

kat I just posted about this not long ago. Emily is 3 1/2 and she has just started picking up on the colors. I was trying to name things for her like oh look at that pretty pink flower, look how green the grass looks today. she has just started to get it and sometimes she still gets them mixed up. For a while I was certain she was color blind and would never learn her colors.